So back to using the SX150 for the first time in 20 months and it’s great to be using such a good camera again. One of the reasons I stopped using it is because I couldn’t get a pouch that would hold two additional NiMH AAs as well as two lithium AAs for “emergency” backup. But I will get by for now with just the two extra NiMHs. I have just bought a 4 pack of Eneloops to make sure I have some that will give me a decent amount of charge capacity, and they can also be used in the Speedlite flash that I have for my EOS so they will not be wasted.
Yes it is great to be using this camera with all of the features it provides and the picture quality may not be as good as some other cameras but you don’t care so much about that in that sort of price range. Even with the ISO bumped to 1600 for taking photos at dusk, I am reasonably happy with the kind of photo. Noisy yes but you expect some sort of issue for getting handheld photos at 1/13 of a second in that kind of lighting, otherwise you would use a tripod. I am more concerned that some of my photos taken in low light conditions were a bit blurry. Well, the manual focus would take care of that.
One of the advantages of a lithium battery camera which I had forgotten about is a proper battery meter. When I picked up the 150 I noticed, no battery meter display. It wasn’t until the unexpectedly short shooting time for what must have been a set of batteries with insufficient charge reared its head, that I remembered that on these AA battery cameras, all you will get is a flashing red “battery low” symbol and that is all. There is no battery meter whatsoever that will give you any advance warning, which is partly the reason why I used to carry a set of lithiums in addition to the spare rechargeable set with my AA battery cameras. It’s one more compelling reason to push on and get the 170, or if it happens first, a successor. The 170 is now almost two years old, and it’s still using the same dated Digic IV chip that the 150 had, which is becoming a focal point of independent reviewers. OK, I don’t expect to see the same technology as the SX2xx at twice the price so fair enough but at some point they must be going to update the processor and maybe the sensor (CCD as compared with CMOS in a lot of modern cameras). Then again at that price point there have to be some compromises.